About

Learning how to form metal using the hydraulic press opens new possibilities for your work! In this class, you’ll learn how to create multiples of the same shape, which you can turn into beads, pendants, and components for earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. If you’re using textured metal, you won’t lose any detail as you form the components. 

Students will learn how to: 

• Texture metal using the rolling mill
• Cut disks using the disk cutter and form them using dapping punches or a dapping block in the hydraulic press
• Create squares, diamonds, teardrops, and other non-spherical shapes using pre-made silhouette dies and the hydraulic press

Students will be able to produce a bead, a pair of earring dangles, or a pendant. They will also have time to create samples of each forming technique.

Details:

• This is a beginning / intermediate level class.  Students should know how to saw, pierce, drill, anneal, and file metal. Riveting and soldering skills will be helpful but not necessary.
• $15 materials fee is included in the class tuition.
• Students should bring:

Optional: texturing punches, textures to run through the rolling mill 

If you want to work in silver, please bring your own 24 or 22 gauge sterling sheet at least 2” x 4” (if you have a larger piece, don’t cut it)

Instructor: Joan Hammond began working in metal in 1994, when she started taking metalsmithing classes as an antidote to documenting computer software. What she discovered was a medium that not only utilized her previous training in painting, printmaking, and ceramics, but also opened the possibilities of creating art that can be worn. Family artifacts and history, plants and animals, and the textiles and jewelry of non-Western cultures inspire her current work, which Hammond executes using the techniques of chasing and repoussé. Her long-time interest in Asian art, which deepened when she studied calligraphy and tea ceremony in Kyoto, Japan, continues to influence her aesthetics and sense of design.

Hammond exhibits locally and nationally, and her work has been published in Metalsmith magazine’s Exhibition in Print. She is a member of the Seattle Metals Guild; has served on the Board of Northwest Designer craftsmen; and co-chaired a national conference for the Society of North American Goldsmiths.

Contact: Jewelry.Lead@BainbridgeBARN.org